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The first movie by Michael Haneke (proper, having already made ​​some films for German television) is a treatise of intent, a good example of the interest which the Austrian director channeled all his subsequent films.

To be specific, although the film is divided into three parts, may dissected in half in terms of plot development. A first half to show the daily life of a bourge... read more

Oh my God.... What a depressing movie! Honestly, if you are somber or in a gloomy mood, you shouldn't watch this flick. I mean, I liked it but it hits you like a fist in the face. It is actually Michael Haneke directing début and there were already many of his trademarks : the sober and ascetic directing, the unknow actors (at least, to me), the osbcure plot, the pessimistic view on humanity. As ... read more

Description:Beautifully controlled and liberatingly intelligent, (Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune), The Seventh Continent is the first theatrical film written and directed by German-born auteur Michael Haneke (The Piano Teacher, Cache). "A shocking and potent statement about out times" (Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader), this acutBeautifully controlled and liberatingly intelligent, (Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune), The Seventh Continent is the first theatrical film written and directed by German-born auteur Michael Haneke (The Piano Teacher, Cache). "A shocking and potent statement about out times" (Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader), this acute chronicle of a family degenerating into self-destruction is the first of a feature-film trilogy (concluding with Benny's Video and 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance) that centers on the intersections between media, alienation and violence. Described by Haneke as a reflection on "the progressive emotional glaciation of Austria," The Seventh Continent focuses on George (Dieter Berner), a middling engineer, and his sardonic wife Anna (Birgit Doll). Unable to empathize with their daughter's compulsion for lying and uninterested in each other's emotional well-being, the couple turns their pedestrian way of life into a vortex of subjective malaise. And while a recurring ad for an Australian vacation stands as a signal of potential blissfulness, the couple's perfunctory melancholy eventually materialized into barbarism. Based on a true story, and filmed as a succession of beautifully composed and yet mundane tableaux, this unsentimental depiction of individual and family collapse "ranks among the most truly terrifying in modern cinema" (Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune). More than a metaphor of hope and escape, The Seventh Continent is a meticulous dive into the postmodern disregard of affect - and a stark look at lives severed from feelings.... (more)(less)

"The motives of the family presented in Haneke's debut are deliberately left ambiguous, which may be a bit troublesome. What really shines in this film, however, is how little details in their day-to-day lives evoke such a provocative level of emotion. The importance in its various minor gestures gracefully lead to its morbid, inevitable conclusion.
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“The first movie by Michael Haneke (proper, having already made ​​some films for German television) is a treatise of intent, a good example of the interest which the Austrian director channeled all his subsequent films.

To be specific, although the film is divided into three parts, may dissected in half in terms of plot development. A first half to show the daily life of a bourgeois family, a couple with a young daughter, and a final part to detail the self-destruction which has no choice.

"The Seventh Continent" is based on a real event and dissects the tedium of Western life in a drab and unbearable parade of daily habits that lead to a horror vacui which leads to more pessimistic existential questioning.

“Oh my God.... What a depressing movie! Honestly, if you are somber or in a gloomy mood, you shouldn't watch this flick. I mean, I liked it but it hits you like a fist in the face. It is actually Michael Haneke directing début and there were already many of his trademarks : the sober and ascetic directing, the unknow actors (at least, to me), the osbcure plot, the pessimistic view on humanity. As usual, he tries to make a strong statement but, as usual, you never can be sure what it is but that's what awesome is about Haneke's movies, you have to figure it out yourself. It is a rather slow movie and it took me a while to understand what was going on but the last 20 minutes were really heavy. Since it is all very depressing and since there is actually no much going on during the whole thing” read more

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Never before have I watched a director take so much time to say so terribly little. I know I'm supposed to like this film, but really I found it too shallow and intellectually/philosophically lazy to offer it much praise.
Yes, director Michael Haneke used a newspaper article as inspiration for this, his debut, film and as such there were only so many directions he could go. And his bold and deliberate use of cinematography, editing-- his entire vision is very effective here in terms of what h"

"Never before have I watched a director take so much time to say so terribly little. I know I'm supposed to like this film, but I found it too shallow and intellectually/philosophically lazy to offer it much praise. "